Introduction to Outlook 2007 – How to Design and Use Electronic Business Cards
The exchange of business cards is a time-honored ritual in the world of business. Starting with Outlook 2007, Microsoft aligned itself with that tradition (and with other email products) by adding simple, user-friendly support for electronic business cards. These cards, created using the industry standard vCard (.vcf) format, not only look good on the screen, but can be exchanged easily with most any other modern email or contact management program.
However, while working with electronic business cards in Outlook 2007 is easy, designing an effective, attractive business card, whether electronic or printed, can be an elaborate production with designers, focus groups, and so on. This puts the art of designing quality electronic business cards outside the scope of an article on Outlook. What we’ll do is talk only about how you create and use electronic business cards. It’s up to you, in compliance with corporate policy, to come up with a design you are proud of.
Creating Your Electronic Business Card
As soon as you create a new contact, Outlook will automatically create a very basic electronic business card for it. These are nothing more than lists of the basic contact information (name, address, and so on) for that contact, along with a copy of the contact’s picture (if you have one). The procedure that follows is a very basic set of instructions for creating more elaborate cards to that replace the plain and frankly dull default ones.
To create an electronic business card for any given contact, follow these high-level steps:
- Open the contact you want to work on. The current electronic business card for this contact appears on the right side of the contact window.
- Right-click the current electronic business card. In the shortcut menu that appears, click Edit Business Card. This opens the Edit Business Card dialog box.
- As you can see, there are many options and controls for modifying and controlling every aspect of the business card. Fortunately, Microsoft has simplified things by including an image of the business card here. That image changes as you make changes to the controls. That means you can see the results of each change as you make it. That also means you can easily undo changes you don’t like and freely experiment with different options.
- Once you have selected and formatted the fields you want visible on the card, switch your attention to the top of the Card Design section and work your way down. Experiment with the settings to find a design you like, or follow the directions from corporate to give your card the approved look. To include an image other than the photo associated with the contact, click the Image button and insert it. Click Background to apply a background color to the card.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 as many times as necessary to get a design you like. Click OK when you’re done designing.
Using Your Own Electronic Business Card
Your new business card design will now be visible in Business Card view and whenever you attach it to a message you’re working on. To attach the card to a message, first position the cursor in the message at the location where you want the business card to appear. Then go to the Include section of the ribbon and click Insert Business Card. The card appears at the location of the cursor in the body of the message. The card is also attached to the message in .VCF format so the recipient can easily save it.
Learning how to work with electronic business cards is just one of the things covered in Lesson 4 of the 6-week online course, Introduction to Outlook 2007. If strengthening your skills with Outlook 2007 makes sense to you in these uncertain economic times, and you like the idea of a structured class with the ability to interact with your instructor, I suggest you visit http://IntroToOutlook2007.info to learn more.
